The Scourge

Cancer is whipping the behinds of AIDS and Malaria in the race to become the single biggest killer of African potential.  It's winning the race almost hands down! Forget the two biggest contenders AIDS and Malaria, forget brain drain, forget infant and maternal mortality.  Think about it, how many loved ones have to lost to any of those causes in the past year?  If you do have a number other than zero, please accept my sincere condolences. I'm willing to bet though, that you have at least an equal number gone to Cancer.
It's come up with a million and one varieties, a million and one cells to affect in a body, and a million and one ways to evade treatment!
Time was when it was possible to directly relate cancer in a patient to a specific causative agent or predisposition: a smoking habit; a family history of breast cancer; long-term exposure to a known carcinogen, possibly from working in a factory; etc.  Today cancer doesn't need any of those excuses to strike anymore!  People who haven't smoked a day in their life die of cancer.  What do you do to predispose you to pancreatic cancer? or breast cancer for that matter?
Time was when we all knew what the carcinogens were and if we stayed away from them we were relatively sure to be cancer-free.  Now every other day something else gets added to the list of carcinogens.  It's practically impossible to live a normal life without being exposed to at least one cancer-causing agent each day!
We're told early detection is the only real solution, and yet a large proportion of detection/diagnosis is still incidental, happening only after treatment for other diseases has failed.  This in particular is the case for people with no family history or known predisposition, and people in (3rd?) world countries like Nigeria.
Young ladies are getting elective mammograms every day now in some parts of the world because they have a family history of breast cancer.  Older ladies are having elective hysterectomies because they have some predisposition to ovarian cancer- and those are the lucky ones!  The ones who are educated enough and aware enough and possess the resources to actually do these procedures. That still leaves the rest of the population who still get blindsided by cancer everyday to deal with the debilitating sickness, the pain, the sheer agony of the sickness.  It still leaves all of those families to watch their loved ones fade away before their eyes.  We won't talk about how traumatic it must be for a woman of any age who takes preventive or even curative measures to lose such a intrinsic part of their anatomy, a portion that pretty much defines them as that gender.  We won't talk about the fact that oftentimes even after these drastic measures they still lose the battle.
Oh how do we rationalize the loss of an able-bodied young man to cancer due to exposure to hitherto unknown or well-hidden carcinogens in the factory where he worked to put food on the table for his family?  What if the carcinogens were already known but he could find no other work?
So even the handful who are willing and able to take preventive measures still do it at a huge cost- emotional, spiritual, financial, relational, psychological costs.
So it looks like any which way we all pay, right?  In some form or the other we pay, whether first hand or 2nd hand we pay. Such a steep price we pay.
So here I am lending my voice to the cry for a cure for cancer.  Can every nation put their money where their citizen's lives are going? Can every millionaire, every billionaire and every philanthropist put some real money into this? Can every religion talk about this on every holy day and consciously pray and fast about it?  Can every research institute make this a priority? Can everybody do something concrete towards a cure when you read this? Please?
I acknowledge and I applaud all of the people who are in any way contributing to that search for a cure right now.  I acknowledge the giant steps that have been made.  I'm just saying I think we can do more if we all really just give it a moment of thought.
RIP Remi Lagos (aged 51), the latest to fall prey to the scourge. I didn't know her personally, but she contributed immensely to putting Nigeria on the fashion map.

This one is dedicated to my dad Professor Amos Babatunde Folarin (died aged 69); to our friend Bayo Muili (aged 44); to a lovely woman Mrs Ogundipe (aged 62); to Uncle Akintunde (50s); to Donna Summer (aged 63); to Yvette Wilson (aged 48); and to all the other people who've fallen, and those that are currently battling...

DanaRama

"The federal government has lifted the suspension of the Operating Licence of Dana Airlines," Joe Obi, spokesman for the aviation ministry said in a statement.

"This follows government's satisfaction with the air-worthiness of the airline after a rigorous technical, operational and financial audit."

On the 3rd of June 2012, at least 159 of God's most precious creation lost their lives in an untimely and gruesome manner.  Multiply that number by an infinite exponential factor and you can begin to get a picture of the number of lives that were really affected, the number of families that were thrown into grieving, mourning, disarray, despondence, hopelessness, truncation, stagnation- you get the drift- on account of this one incidence.
Exactly 94 days after that ill-fated journey, on the 5th of September 2012, we hear the above announcement over various news media.
After the crash, people were understandably hurt and angry and the authorities did the right thing by opening an investigation into the cause of the plane crash, and suspending Dana from flying.  The black box from the aircraft was sent abroad to be decoded, in aid of said investigation. 

Forgive me for repeating information that we all got from the news media, I'm just testing to see that indeed that information was not available to only me, who had access to it by some special priviledge or connection with the powers that be.  If indeed it is true that this information was openly available to us all, am I over-reaching in thinking that through the same news media, we should also have gotten the information on the results of the investigation, and at least a layman's account of the details of the 'rigorous technical, operational and financial audit?'
As far as I know, at the end of every audit there is an audit report. So I am not wrong in assuming that such a report must exist and must be in the possession of our highly esteemed officials, right? 
Would it be too much to ask that they share that report with us, seeing as we are still grieving for our dearly beloved departed friends and family, and we would like to feel that we are doing something to ensure that their lives have not just been wasted, and that at the very least our authorities have done something to mitigate against a repetition of the same factors causing a future accident even though they are not God and cannot mitigate against other, as yet unknown factors?
Would it be presumptuous of me to expect to hear the news of the results of that investigation, and a report on a review of Dana's, and indeed all the other airlines' processes and procedures, before the news of the lift on the ban on Dana airlines?

It's 94 days after.  Each victim didn't even get one day of respect?
Don't get it twisted, 94 days is sufficient to do all that's required, so I'm not advocating that Dana continue to be punished even after all that's required has been done.  I'm saying let's show a little respect for the citizens of this nation.  Let's begin to put their lives and welfare ahead of other interests, personal and commercial.  Show us that due diligence has been done and I would gladly go out and fly Dana or any other airline that's expedient in the moment. It's simply not enough to announce that he ban has been lifted.  All is not uhuru.

If, again, I am the only one who does not have this information on account of my reclusive lifestyle and lack of basic infrastructure, and indeed all this information has been made publicly available, then I apologise for my tirade, but today, I just don't feel like turning the other cheek!

Ibiye and His Goat

There's an adage in my local language that I've probably heard a handful of times but never really thought much of.  Seemingly out of nowhere, I started to think about it and I think I finally understand it.  Picture this: There's a blind man named Ibiye.  Ibiye owns a goat, which also happens to be blind.  The adage describes Ibiye's goat as being the cause of much abuse or insult to its owner on account of the fact that it's blind, just like it's owner.
Doesn't seem to make much sense at first perusal, right?
Well if you consider that in the same language, the exact same sentence could mean 'you blind goat' or 'you blind man's goat', then it begins to make a bit more sense.
So, if there was a son of an alcoholic dad who got drunk one day at a family meal and someone said 'what a drunkard'!  Who would you reckon they're referring to?  
As with most Yoruba proverbs, the meaning of this one is multi pronged.
On the surface, it may mean something akin to 'those who live in glass houses should not throw stones'.  It could translate roughly into: If there is already a propensity towards some negativity in your life, do not do anything to perpetuate that notion.  I know! I know!  That last sentence goes against everything I know about writing and speaking but I'm going to let it stand.
On another level it says to Ibiye: because you're blind, to most people, your goat is never going to be anything more than the goat of the blind man, no matter what great feats it accomplishes.
To the goat it says: were you not also blind, at least your blind master would have one good thing in his life, one thing to be proud of or happy about.
Essentially, it's saying to fathers, mentors, and all people in the superior position in any relationship to set worthy examples and to keep their image untarnished so that their misdeeds do not reflect negatively on their protegees; and it's saying to all children, protegees or all people in the 'junior' role in such relationships to ensure that they do not repeat the mistakes of their superiors.  Chances are that they may have been able to make said mistake on their own without anyone making to much of it, but given their superior's record, the conclusion , justifiable or not, would be that 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree'.
So there's the lesson, whoever you are, watch what you do lest it reflect poorly on your loved ones.  Afterall, the evil that men do does live after them.

The writer in me

There's a writer in me.  This I know for sure.  Sometimes I think the writer is right there on the surface, it's who I am; sometimes I think that writer is so deeply buried that I don't know if she'll ever see the light of day.  But of this I'm sure, there IS a writer in me.
I find that writing, as with everything in life is a discipline.  Whether it comes easy to you or its hard for you, it makes no difference. So far, I've waited for the inspiration to hit, and it has hit, but if my livelihood was dependent on those hits, I'd probably be homeless and hungry right now.
So here's what I'm saying: no matter how much talent you have, you've got to cultivate the discipline to practice and improve on your act.
It's the reason why some people will never work at a job that does not pay a fixed salary at the end of the month- because if it was all up to them they would get up some mornings, and some mornings not.  They would show up some days, and some days not.

Talent is a hard taskmaster- it requires you work harder than the next guy who does not have that talent because you know and the people around you know how much more you could accomplish on account of that talent; and everyday you're not exploiting that talent something dies within you, whether you acknowledge it or not.
I'm not necessarily talking here about how much money you can make from exploiting your talent.  I do admit that it would be fantastic to be financially successful at something that comes naturally to you, but excelling at something you're naturally gifted for provides a satisfaction that trascends that.  It gives almost a sense of destiny fulfilled.

The other thing that I know about myself is that I'm a bit of a perfectionist.  I would rather not submit a report than submit one that's imperfect.  However I'm beginning to realise more and more everyday that that report was only imperfect in my own perfectionist eyes!  To most other people it was lacking nothing.
Talented people tend to be the worst self-critics in their area of talent.
I recently heard that 'perfectionism is a form of mediocrity'.  I don't know who the original author of that was, and I spent quite a few days grappling with it.  It irked me to no end, but I think I finally understand what it's saying.  If in trying to get the report to be perfect you end up not submitting the report, what conclusion is the person needing the report to draw?  The most logical one is that you're a charlatan who has no clue, you're lazy, you're inconsistent, you're......  Supposing you had submitted the report it might have played out in two ways: the report might have been perfect just the way it is, which is the more likely option; or it might have needed a bit more work to get it to meet the user's needs- note that this does not necessarily mean that there was anything wrong with the work that was done before.  Either way, you would have received some feedback upon which you can then base the improvements you need to make on your work, rather than relying entirely on your own, dare I say, flawed view.
So here's what I've decided to do- I'm going to dig deep and exhume that writer within me, and I'm going to keep her on the surface by writing as much as I can.  More importantly I'm going to put my stuff out there and grit my teeth while I wait for the critism, which even now the 10% of me that allows for anything short of perfection, realises will probably never come.
So, here I come world...

Seasons

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1.

When we hear about seasons we automatically think about the four seasons that make up a year or a cycle– Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.  Each of these seasons has its own peculiarities, things we automatically associate with it- cold with winter, freshness with spring, etc.

It occurred to me that seasons in the life of a human being are analogous to the seasons of the year.  And as with the seasons of the year, they occur in cycles.  I imagine that there could be an infinite number of cycles but I identified three

1)    Chronological cycle

The period from when you’re born till late teenage or early twenties is the spring of your life, the planting season.  Your parents invest in educating you and otherwise training you for life. 

From about mid-twenties to mid-forties it’s summer, you blossom and bear fruit.  Your education pays off, you get the great job and great salary, you get married, have kids, travel the world.

From about mid-forties to late sixties it’s autumn.  Your health may start to decline, you get grandchildren, things generally slow down from the frenzy of the summer years.

Well, when you die its winter for sure

2)    Incidental cycle

We’re thrown into different seasons by the events happening in our life.  When something new is happening in our lives, its spring.  You just got married, you just had a baby, you just started a new business.

When you get the promotion, watch your child graduate, get the business award, its summer.

Sudden ill-health or death in the family would plunge you into autumn.  Should the illness result in death, autumn becomes winter.  The failure or loss of a business, foreclosure of a home, etc, plunge you into winter.

3)    Self-inflicted cycle

Sometimes we take certain decisions that force us into a particular season.  In fact, every major decision that we take in our lives force us into a certain season.  Sometimes it just accelerates or decelerates things a bit, but sometimes it catapults us straight through several seasons. Deciding to start a family, quit your job, rob a bank, etc. will force you into a season, good or bad.

The important thing to remember is that seasons are always cyclical. So even though winter may appear a little longer than usual right now, spring will show up at some point; and even though you’re enjoying a long sultry summer right now, autumn will come knocking eventually. 

Hal Borland said: no winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn, and

William Blake teaches us to learn at seed time, teach at harvest, and in winter enjoy.

Nurture over Nature

My Toastmasters CC3 speech...

According to Wikipedia, the nature vs nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences in determining individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

The debate on the one side is illustrated by Manolakes’ thesis which purports that “an individual's intelligence - no less than 40% and no more than 80% of which is inherited genetically from his or her parents - has more effect than socioeconomic background on future life experiences." On the other side is John B Watson who said that if he was given a dozen healthy infants and his own specific world, he could raise the infants to be specialists in randomly selected areas regardless of their natural abilities, talents or inclinations.

I am more in favour of the interactionist school, illustrated in the quote by Ridley that says that "Mother Nature has plainly not entrusted the determination of our intellectual capacities to the blind fate of a gene or genes; she gave us parents, learning, language, culture and education to program ourselves with."

This theory is supported by the many many stories we’ve heard of people who are born ‘disadvantaged’, or became so pretty early in life; already supposedly defeated by disability or circumstance, but who somehow rose above that to be great success stories. The Ben Carson story is one of such; Ray Charles, the great musician is another; Nick Vujicic, the guy with no limbs but who’s living and advocating that we all live life without limits is another of those stories. South Africa’s Olympic gold medalist Natalie du Toit is another.

Were these people born with a gene that somehow made them better able to cope with and even rise above their disabilities or disadvantages? I don’t think so.  In fact the stories of these people that we’ve read in books and watched in films show us that they all suffered periods of depression and self-doubt, but each of them had at least one person in their lives who believed in them and nurtured them through their disability and somehow helped them turn it into ability. For Ray Charles it was his mum who knew she wouldn’t always be there to look after him so she encouraged him to be independent. She would watch him fall down but with tears in her eyes she’d refuse to help him up.  She didn’t move anything out of his way but actually placed obstacles in his path to help him train his other senses so he could get around on his own.  For Nick Vujicic it was his family’s and ultimately his faith in God, and a special relationship with his grandfather that helped him pull through.

There’s no doubt that Ray Charles had a great musical gift- that’s nature, but would he have been able to reach the heights that he did without the particular type of nurturing that he got?  My opinion? No. Would Nick be such a success story today without his family’s and his faith, despite his undoubted charisma and speaking abilities? No.

On the other side are the children who grow up to be psychopaths and serial killers. The websites ‘America’s famous serial killers’, and ‘murderuk.com’ reveal that almost all of the listed serial killers were born ‘normal’ but had issues of abandonment and abuse in their formative years; or had personally experienced or witnessed severe pain or loss, also in their formative years. Only a handful were listed to have mental illnesses.  In other words, once again nurture (or the lack of it), rather than nature appears to play the biggest role in how these people turned out.

Am I therefore discounting the effect of nature and genetics on how we turn out or who we become? Again, no. I cannot because I myself have two beloved sons who are as different as night is from day. It is sometimes hard for me, never mind a stranger- to believe that they’re both being raised in the same household by the same people. So obviously some of their behaviour and traits, maybe even a large part of it is ‘how they were made’ but I do believe that parents, the environment, culture, etc can and do help mould an individual into a person that’s more likely to succeed or survive in the human jungle we find ourselves in.

That’s why I never give up trying or give up hope when I have to tell my older son for something like the one thousandth time that it isn’t always acceptable to speak the first thought that comes into your head without editing it, or to express every opinion that you have, or when I tell my younger son that saying no occasionally does not necessarily make you a bad person. I truly believe that I can nurture them into a form of their inherent nature that’ll make them happier and more productive people, and I urge you to never stop trying in your roles as parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, bosses, with the young people who have been placed in your world.

Confessions of a Soapieholic

So I decided to share my ToastMasters speeches with you.  Here's my favourite one so far, probably because I had so much fun giving it; and so far it was probably the best meld of the speech I wrote, the speech I wanted to give, and the speech I actually gave.  Entertaining?

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

That’s the ‘Serenity Prayer’, and it’s the creed of the Alcoholics/Narcotics/Nymphomaniacs/Shopaholics/Road Ragers Anonymous.  I saw a number of people automatically recite it with me, and it just makes me wonder…..

I have an addiction to soap operas, otherwise known as ‘soapieholism’.   Most nights I start out by having Kaaskook and Hanepoot with Charmaine at Oppiekoffie, then I segue on to Siqalo Court to glean a few nuggets of wisdom from Kaphela, from there I jet out to California to visit the doctors of Oceanside Wellness Clinic, or to Fairview to visit my friends Gabriella and Bree on Wisteria Lane, or to the streets of Miami to solve a murder mystery with Horatio

I love soapies for a number of reasons; one is the abundance of drool-worthy gorgeousness! The hunks have abs that even the gods dream of and walk with just the right amount of swagger, and the babes have toned triceps and glam gams, and the homes and offices are always beautifully decorated. Picture all the doctors of Oceanside Wellness in one of their offices- Usually my brain freezes over, my jaw hangs slack and my ears start ringing from the sensory overload my eyes are getting… Compare that to this real life roomful of people… but then the writers leave them with just enough dysfunction in their lives to keep them out of the realm of angels- Paula is stunning and has boatloads of je ne sais quoi, but she also has a weakness for handsome men so she can’t stay faithful to Altus, Addison is a kick-ass surgeon but she has a mum who’s never once told her she loves her, Cooper is cute and loyal but he’s a recovering porn addict. Still, the mess to beauty ratio is usually significantly higher in real life.

The other thing I love about soapies is that people usually have such great relationships.  I’d like to have one friendship like Meredith and Christina’s- everybody knows they’re going to take each other’s sides no matter what the issue is; I’d like a friend like Queen who’s willing and ready to go on a therapeutic shopping spree with me no matter what time of day or night I call her- she can always take time off work and she never has a hot date that she can’t bear to miss; or I’d like a friend like Ugly Betty to be my conscience and keep me on the straight and narrow all the time. Most relationships in soapies are like armoured tanks- indestructible- they survive anything from sleeping with each other’s exes and family members to sabotaging each other in the board room and at job interviews.  Real humans are considerably less charitable and more fickle than that.

The third thing that I love about soapies is that I get to learn so much random stuff- from the medical fact that certain types of cancer in women cause an overproduction of testosterone which may cause them to be aggressive and even violent, to the meanings of simple legal terms like ‘discovery’ and ‘subpoena’, to the inane fact that it’s impossible to keep your eyes open when you sneeze.

Hi, I am Orange Girl and I am a soapieholic.

God grant me the serenity to accept it when the networks kill off my favourite character, the courage to actually get out and socialise with real people every once in a while, and the wisdom to know when to PVR and go out, and when to excuse myself and stay in.

My Stormy day

Ok.  So here we are again.  Me trying to share my thoughts and opinions with you.  I got locked out of my previous blog- makarenablogs, so I started a new one!  Hopefully I'll be more consistent this time.
Well its a wet day in Lagos.  One of my returnee friends actually referred to what happened this morning as a 'tropical storm' on FB.  It WAS quite blustery, and I even thought I heard hailstones, but I couldn't help laughing out loud at one of the comments she got- someone asking her what she was feeling like decribing Lagos rain as a 'tropical storm', Mungo Park?  Indeed it was a tropical storm, it's just nobody expects a Nigerian living in Nigeria to describe good old rain and hail as a 'tropical storm'.  Well it was certainly stormy enough to send my cable dish out of whack.  I am now waiting for the 'installer' to come and tilt it back into position to receive the satellite signal. 
They say God works in mysterious ways- once again, right on the money, because I probably would not have done this first post on my new blog if my signal was fine.  I'd like to believe I would have had the descipline to follow through, but I'm just not so sure (sigh).
I was at one of the Visa Application Centres this morning to submit an application for a UK visa.  I must say I'm impressed with the speed and efficiency with with the process was dealt with, once we actually got to go into the centre- which happened 30 minutes behind schedule because- you guessed it- the 'Tropical Storm' kept the workers from getting to work on time!  Quite a few of them had to push past us clients on the queue to get into their office!  Interesting that the apllicants somehow still managed to get there (sort of ) on time despite the storm, and the workers didn't.
Pardon me if I'm too quick with my praise.  It may be because I've been living in South Africa for the past six years, and therefore have not applied for a visa in Nigeria for quite a few years now.  My memories are of sliding on your bottom across a dingy bench outside of a visa office until it came time to go in; going into a poorly lit room smelling of stale, unwashed, or spiritually perfumed bodies, and sliding along on your bottom some more until it came time to sit across the glass pane from some poorly paid civil servant on a mission to 'catch' Nigerians trying to sneak into their countries the enjoy the 'good life' while they were sweating here in Lagos.  To be fair, I never had a personal encounter with one of those, but I did witness one or two such encounters.
Of course the experience this morning would not be complete without the story of the guards asking for 'something for the boys' or 'anything for minerals' on my way out, despite the large signs all over the centre advising clients to desist from tipping their staff, but to rather fill an 'appreciation log'. Interesting.  Maybe I should have asked to fill it, just to see what it looks like?  Would I mention the specific staff member I'm so appreciative of?  Would this translate into some benefit for such staff- monetary reward or award, a public mention?  Would the staff find this as gratifying as the would-be 'something for minerals'?